New York City's Subway is Getting More Reliable: "185,000 miles between malfunctions"

Photo: FLickr, CCInvesting in Mass Transit PaysMass transit is a great way for people to reduce their transportation footprint, especially city dwellers. But bad quality transit systems can drive people back to their cars (literally), and once a subway or bus system has acquired the reputation of being unreliable/dirty/dangerous/etc, it can take a while to change that reputation. That's why it's good news to learn that the New York City subway has been getting more reliable.NY Daily writes:

After more than two years of declines, trains, on average, traveled 185,000 miles between mechanical malfunctions in May, NYC Transit officials said. That's a 39% jump over the previous May. Last month, the mileage trains traveled on average before mechanical problems was 31% greater than in June 2008, the stats show.

This improvement has been credited to an improved maintenance schedule and new subway cars.

Here's a suggestion: The next thing that NYC should do to improve its transit system should be to add a bus line to the Holland Tunnel, since none have been added since Richard Nixon was president.